GenX Retread
Drag Racing Champion
- Location
- Canada
- Car(s)
- 2021 GTI Autobahn
Background: I picked up a '21 GTI Autobahn DSG 5 weeks ago. It's my first 'car' since 2005; during that long winter of my discontent I've been driving pickups (a dozen I think) and one Explorer. Before that I had Mk3 2.0 and VR6 GTIs back to back, and also an NB MX-5, an '81 RX7 GSL and a Mustang. Also a metric mittfull of motorcycles.
As a single mid-40's dude it is my solemn duty to purchase a version of the sporty car from my youth, obviously. I really wanted a new Mustang GT PP1, but they're over $60K Maple Pesos optioned the same way as this GTI, which was under $40K. Win. Had there been a Golf R on the market this year, I'm sure I would have had one, but there isn't, and I couldn't wait for a Mk8, nor do I like that car as much as the 7.5.
Overall I'm totally impressed with this thing. 5 minutes into the test drive I was sold on the driver triangle, handling, cockpit layout and overall drive. It looks good inside and out. The design language is really cohesive and stylish, without pretending to be something else. Still iconic after all these years.
I happen to think that all of the safety and driving tech make this a better car, particularly because of the amount of control I have over all of it. I'm loving the fuel economy; she drinks about 40% of the gas that my 5.0L V8 4WD truck does, and the Costco on the rez sells premium (91) for less than the regular (87) pump price in the city.
Power only comes in three serving sizes: enough, not enough and more than enough. This one has enough, but I'm still going to add a little more, because of reasons. Probably a JB4, drop-in filter and DP. I think this car would be brilliant with a HP number beginning with 3; not sure what's needed to get there. Bolt ons and Stage 1 or 2 ECU tune?
Handling is on a whole different level to those Mk3s... let's be honest, those cars weren't particularly good as delivered by VW. Under-sprung AND under-damped, on farily skinny tires, with ponderous body control and mushy under-steer. This one has poise, didn't skip leg day, and rotates way better on throttle lift - probably because the inside rear isn't up in the air. I might change the springs, but mostly for looks, just to fill the gap some.
In no particular order: Hits & Misses
+ Seats fit my body perfectly. Good bolstering, totally comfy. Nice leather. All the power adjustments.
- No memory seat buttons. I would have paid extra for this, because that awesome driver's position means the seat has to come back to enter/exit the car.
- I would have preferred plaid.
+ Automagic driving tech. Love it; the lane assist, blind spot monitor, brake assist, all of it. I don't mind the auto start/stop. I can turn all of it on and off, and the ones which demand turning off quickly have hard buttons next to the shifter.
+ Automatic climate control; not the first vehicle I've had with this, but it's great. 21.5°C please.
+ Automatic adaptive headlights; these are just cool.
+ DCC. Love it. I find the difference between Comfort and Sport modes to be substantial.
- It's still a little harsh over sharp speedbumps or potholes. 40-series tires not helpful here, but the front end still makes a pretty good noise if you happen to top- or bottom out.
+Wind noise; this is a pretty quiet car.
- Road noise; this is a pretty loud car. To be fair, I'm used to being way up off the road in a pickup. Sound deadening in the rear would probably address this.
- OEM tires are junk. This is almost universally true of all average-joe cars and trucks (though my Miata came with Michelin Pilot Sports fitted). These Pirellis are still nowhere near as garbagy garbage as the Bridgestones and Goodyears that came with my prior VWs though. The tires may be culpable for some of the road noise, but I can't tell for sure.
+++Full Adaptive Cruise Control! Just awesome. I especially like the little diagram in the MFD that lets me pick how many rock chips I'm willing to get. Works great in rush-hour commute traffic (though my commute doesn't have any true stop & go action, except at red lights).
+ CC works down to 30Km/h. There are some comically long playground zones in this town. I can also cruise around my neighbourhood at a casual 40Km/h, blasting Fleetwood Mac from those sweet Fender speakers to attract the resident divorceés out walking their Bernese Mountain Dogs and just livin' their best IG lyfe. If I see one pushing a stroller I switch to DK and it works in reverse.
+ Cargo space; I'm glad the rear cross-brace is gone - I kept a wrench in my old GTIs to remove it when I needed to stuff something huge back there. Lots of room for groceries, plenty for a full-on road trip odyssey.
- Probably too small to sleep in while road trippin'. I'm not a big guy, but this is not a big car.
+ Cargo cover storage under the trunk floor.
- It takes 1500 tries to get the cargo cover to fit in it's storage space under the trunk floor.
- Rear seatbacks need some sort of tether to raise them without opening the rear doors. Should be easy to rig.
+ Adjustable trunk floor, plus those cubbies on the sides are super useful.
-- Can't pop the hatch from the driver's position... absolute miss. Will install the kit from ECS and do the OBDEleven thing.
+ Cabin storage; glove box is plenty big enough, door bins are great. Little cubby on the left is empty, but nice to have I guess.
- Centre console; small and too far back. The sliding armrest is a nice touch, because it would be horrible without that.
- Cupholders; just not very good. Positioned badly. The spring-loaded plastic tabs are terrible, noisy with a metal mug, and make using the cupholder for other items worse.
- Front console; oddly shaped? It would be better if it didn't shallow out after the ramp, maybe.
+ USB-C
- No wireless charging. Seems like a total miss since MIB3 has wireless CarPlay.
+ Infotainment. The MIB3 system looks good, works well, no complaints at all. Minimal menu-tree spelunking required. The best of the systems among the vehicles I test drove. First time I've had CarPlay too, and I love it. Being able to drive my pocket supercomputer through a native interface is the way. (I do wish I could READ text messages when the vehicle is parked. That's on Apple, not VW I suspect?)
- Performance Monitor missing from MIB3. Like many others, I have a ticket open with VW Canada about this. The ticket states that PMI(?) is supposed to be available, but isn't. I suspect these tickets will rot on the vine and whither away TBH.
- AM radio reception is horrible. Yes, some people still listen to AM radio.
+ Fender audio; it's probably the finest ever installed in a car? I wouldn't know, because my hearing is pretty shot. I wouldn't pay extra for an audio upgrade if I had the choice, but it's in here, and it sounds good to me.
+++ DSG. I made a longer comment in another thread, but this is an excellent transmission which gives up nothing to the manual IMO. Instead of feeling like I'm rowing gears, it feels like flicking shifts on a motorcycle. It's an economy of physical motion that's miles ahead.
- Manual shifting with the console shifter... +UP and -DOWN are backwards if you ask me.
-Paddles kind of suck. Will install aftermarket ones.
+ VAQ; I love that I can feel it working when it's doing it's thing, and that it does that thing well. I grin when I feel/hear the inside front lose grip, then the car digs and goes. This car would be diminished without this bit of hardware and software goodness. Would it be improved with a stout mechanical LSD? I don't know.
+ Drive modes; each one actually does change the character of the car. I like it.
- No snow/ice mode. Because North of the wall, some of us freeze in the dark for 5 months at a time, and there is packed snow and hard ice on all of the roads some of the time, and some of the roads all of the time. No doubt the system components still do what needs doing, but I've liked a full-on winter mode on other vehicles I've driven. Placebo effect maybe. Will know for sure this winter.
- Throttle mapping; it's really flat in the first portion of pedal travel, then a little abrupt. I'm not confusing this with turbo lag.
- Odd functionality choices; I can open my windows with the fob, but not close them. I can close them with my thumb on the door handle lock spot, but not open them. These can be enabled in the software... why not just switch them all on? It's the last model year of a car, and only offered in the top trim level. Give it the business VW... Why not? There are a dozen examples of this.
--- No remote start. Miss me with the hate speech. When it's -30°C, it's very useful to be able to start the car a minute or two before walking out of work in the freezing dark at 4PM.
--- No block heater... in Canada. If there is one, I can't find it. For this reason I'm going to have to put my bikes in the trailer for the winter so I can park the car in the garage. (OK, it's a new car, I might have done this anyway. And hey, maybe someone will steal the trailer with the bikes in it, and I can get new ones?) A block heater is the difference between a car being warm by the time I get to work vs. by the time I get half way to work.
++ Heated seats powerful enough to keep a pizza warm. Because now I like driving again, so I'll go across town to pick up from Sammy's.
--- Windshield wipers can't be raised from the down position; they make contact with the hood. Yes, I know how to park them in the top position; that's garbage. This is an absolute miss.
+ Gauge cluster; Analog dials look proper, everything is easy to read, MFD is good.
- Gauge cluster; specifically two things: the scale of the speedo hash-marks changes not once, but TWICE over the range of the gauge. WTF VW... did you get tired part way through? Secondly...
---------- (times infinity) the plastic over the gauges is so soft that it scratches if I curse at an incompetent taxi driver. This is just full-spectrum garbage VW, and you know it. Do better.
+ Sound; she sounds better than my VR6 did. Could be a little louder through the exhaust, but it's getting there as it breaks in and I give it the beans more often and for longer - a little deeper and growlier. Not sure if I'll mess with the exhaust for sound; it's a turbo 4 after all. They mostly sound like WAAAAHHHHH to me. My bikes and truck sound better, in relative terms.
- Soundaktor; must die. Will fix with OBDEleven.
- Engine sounds a little like a tractor at cold-start idle. Moreso from in the cabin than outside the car.
- Turbo noise is a little too mild. I'm not going to mess with a BOV or anything though, just wish it had a little more whistle and woosh. My friend had a Mk4 Jetta which sounded better here, and a prior 3.5Ecoboost F150 had a really great turbo soundtrack ('course there were two of 'em...). My two prior diesel pickups were really musical too.
+ Wheels; it's cool that the car shipped with these lightweight forged Belvedere wheels. That's not where a lot of automakers would spend money. They look decent, though other wheels look better to my eye. I might have these powder coated.
+ Brakes; she stops hard and modulation is really good. Nice work VW. Red calipers look good. I'll probably fit drilled rotors, because I think they look cool.
- Brakes; is huge brake dust production part of VW's engineering specs for all their cars? At least these don't squeal like my other ones did. Will replace the pads for sure.
- Windshield glass; in another thread I mentioned that mine has some subtle ripples, which apparently is just a thing with these. The glass is obviously über soft - I think a mosquito made a chip in it, and for some reason ice/snow bonds to it WAY harder than other vehicles I've owned.
+ Pure White; white is a classic colour for a GTI. I wanted DIB, but the dealer couldn't find one, so then I asked for CFB, but they couldn't get another dealer to transfer one. I hurt the sales guy's feelings when I told him there was no universe where I'd drive away in the Black one he wanted to sell me (Every Black vehicle I've had made me swear I'd never have another... 4 times in total.) This was on the showroom floor, and I told him if they took off the price of the window tint, floor mats and trunk protector, and added 3 years of scheduled maintenance AND the depreciation waiver on the lease, they could keep the roof rack and I'd take that one. So here we are. This white makes the other white cars in the lot at work look either very yellow, or a little pink, depending on the brand. It's like a brand new, washed and bleached white t-shirt. Likey.
TL-DR: you didn't read all that, and who is this old clown anyway? Fleetwood Mac and DK.. wut? Nice car, some things are great, some things are OK and some things are f*cked. A few things will get changes. I like it and I'm glad I bought it.
As a single mid-40's dude it is my solemn duty to purchase a version of the sporty car from my youth, obviously. I really wanted a new Mustang GT PP1, but they're over $60K Maple Pesos optioned the same way as this GTI, which was under $40K. Win. Had there been a Golf R on the market this year, I'm sure I would have had one, but there isn't, and I couldn't wait for a Mk8, nor do I like that car as much as the 7.5.
Overall I'm totally impressed with this thing. 5 minutes into the test drive I was sold on the driver triangle, handling, cockpit layout and overall drive. It looks good inside and out. The design language is really cohesive and stylish, without pretending to be something else. Still iconic after all these years.
I happen to think that all of the safety and driving tech make this a better car, particularly because of the amount of control I have over all of it. I'm loving the fuel economy; she drinks about 40% of the gas that my 5.0L V8 4WD truck does, and the Costco on the rez sells premium (91) for less than the regular (87) pump price in the city.
Power only comes in three serving sizes: enough, not enough and more than enough. This one has enough, but I'm still going to add a little more, because of reasons. Probably a JB4, drop-in filter and DP. I think this car would be brilliant with a HP number beginning with 3; not sure what's needed to get there. Bolt ons and Stage 1 or 2 ECU tune?
Handling is on a whole different level to those Mk3s... let's be honest, those cars weren't particularly good as delivered by VW. Under-sprung AND under-damped, on farily skinny tires, with ponderous body control and mushy under-steer. This one has poise, didn't skip leg day, and rotates way better on throttle lift - probably because the inside rear isn't up in the air. I might change the springs, but mostly for looks, just to fill the gap some.
In no particular order: Hits & Misses
+ Seats fit my body perfectly. Good bolstering, totally comfy. Nice leather. All the power adjustments.
- No memory seat buttons. I would have paid extra for this, because that awesome driver's position means the seat has to come back to enter/exit the car.
- I would have preferred plaid.
+ Automagic driving tech. Love it; the lane assist, blind spot monitor, brake assist, all of it. I don't mind the auto start/stop. I can turn all of it on and off, and the ones which demand turning off quickly have hard buttons next to the shifter.
+ Automatic climate control; not the first vehicle I've had with this, but it's great. 21.5°C please.
+ Automatic adaptive headlights; these are just cool.
+ DCC. Love it. I find the difference between Comfort and Sport modes to be substantial.
- It's still a little harsh over sharp speedbumps or potholes. 40-series tires not helpful here, but the front end still makes a pretty good noise if you happen to top- or bottom out.
+Wind noise; this is a pretty quiet car.
- Road noise; this is a pretty loud car. To be fair, I'm used to being way up off the road in a pickup. Sound deadening in the rear would probably address this.
- OEM tires are junk. This is almost universally true of all average-joe cars and trucks (though my Miata came with Michelin Pilot Sports fitted). These Pirellis are still nowhere near as garbagy garbage as the Bridgestones and Goodyears that came with my prior VWs though. The tires may be culpable for some of the road noise, but I can't tell for sure.
+++Full Adaptive Cruise Control! Just awesome. I especially like the little diagram in the MFD that lets me pick how many rock chips I'm willing to get. Works great in rush-hour commute traffic (though my commute doesn't have any true stop & go action, except at red lights).
+ CC works down to 30Km/h. There are some comically long playground zones in this town. I can also cruise around my neighbourhood at a casual 40Km/h, blasting Fleetwood Mac from those sweet Fender speakers to attract the resident divorceés out walking their Bernese Mountain Dogs and just livin' their best IG lyfe. If I see one pushing a stroller I switch to DK and it works in reverse.
+ Cargo space; I'm glad the rear cross-brace is gone - I kept a wrench in my old GTIs to remove it when I needed to stuff something huge back there. Lots of room for groceries, plenty for a full-on road trip odyssey.
- Probably too small to sleep in while road trippin'. I'm not a big guy, but this is not a big car.
+ Cargo cover storage under the trunk floor.
- It takes 1500 tries to get the cargo cover to fit in it's storage space under the trunk floor.
- Rear seatbacks need some sort of tether to raise them without opening the rear doors. Should be easy to rig.
+ Adjustable trunk floor, plus those cubbies on the sides are super useful.
-- Can't pop the hatch from the driver's position... absolute miss. Will install the kit from ECS and do the OBDEleven thing.
+ Cabin storage; glove box is plenty big enough, door bins are great. Little cubby on the left is empty, but nice to have I guess.
- Centre console; small and too far back. The sliding armrest is a nice touch, because it would be horrible without that.
- Cupholders; just not very good. Positioned badly. The spring-loaded plastic tabs are terrible, noisy with a metal mug, and make using the cupholder for other items worse.
- Front console; oddly shaped? It would be better if it didn't shallow out after the ramp, maybe.
+ USB-C
- No wireless charging. Seems like a total miss since MIB3 has wireless CarPlay.
+ Infotainment. The MIB3 system looks good, works well, no complaints at all. Minimal menu-tree spelunking required. The best of the systems among the vehicles I test drove. First time I've had CarPlay too, and I love it. Being able to drive my pocket supercomputer through a native interface is the way. (I do wish I could READ text messages when the vehicle is parked. That's on Apple, not VW I suspect?)
- Performance Monitor missing from MIB3. Like many others, I have a ticket open with VW Canada about this. The ticket states that PMI(?) is supposed to be available, but isn't. I suspect these tickets will rot on the vine and whither away TBH.
- AM radio reception is horrible. Yes, some people still listen to AM radio.
+ Fender audio; it's probably the finest ever installed in a car? I wouldn't know, because my hearing is pretty shot. I wouldn't pay extra for an audio upgrade if I had the choice, but it's in here, and it sounds good to me.
+++ DSG. I made a longer comment in another thread, but this is an excellent transmission which gives up nothing to the manual IMO. Instead of feeling like I'm rowing gears, it feels like flicking shifts on a motorcycle. It's an economy of physical motion that's miles ahead.
- Manual shifting with the console shifter... +UP and -DOWN are backwards if you ask me.
-Paddles kind of suck. Will install aftermarket ones.
+ VAQ; I love that I can feel it working when it's doing it's thing, and that it does that thing well. I grin when I feel/hear the inside front lose grip, then the car digs and goes. This car would be diminished without this bit of hardware and software goodness. Would it be improved with a stout mechanical LSD? I don't know.
+ Drive modes; each one actually does change the character of the car. I like it.
- No snow/ice mode. Because North of the wall, some of us freeze in the dark for 5 months at a time, and there is packed snow and hard ice on all of the roads some of the time, and some of the roads all of the time. No doubt the system components still do what needs doing, but I've liked a full-on winter mode on other vehicles I've driven. Placebo effect maybe. Will know for sure this winter.
- Throttle mapping; it's really flat in the first portion of pedal travel, then a little abrupt. I'm not confusing this with turbo lag.
- Odd functionality choices; I can open my windows with the fob, but not close them. I can close them with my thumb on the door handle lock spot, but not open them. These can be enabled in the software... why not just switch them all on? It's the last model year of a car, and only offered in the top trim level. Give it the business VW... Why not? There are a dozen examples of this.
--- No remote start. Miss me with the hate speech. When it's -30°C, it's very useful to be able to start the car a minute or two before walking out of work in the freezing dark at 4PM.
--- No block heater... in Canada. If there is one, I can't find it. For this reason I'm going to have to put my bikes in the trailer for the winter so I can park the car in the garage. (OK, it's a new car, I might have done this anyway. And hey, maybe someone will steal the trailer with the bikes in it, and I can get new ones?) A block heater is the difference between a car being warm by the time I get to work vs. by the time I get half way to work.
++ Heated seats powerful enough to keep a pizza warm. Because now I like driving again, so I'll go across town to pick up from Sammy's.
--- Windshield wipers can't be raised from the down position; they make contact with the hood. Yes, I know how to park them in the top position; that's garbage. This is an absolute miss.
+ Gauge cluster; Analog dials look proper, everything is easy to read, MFD is good.
- Gauge cluster; specifically two things: the scale of the speedo hash-marks changes not once, but TWICE over the range of the gauge. WTF VW... did you get tired part way through? Secondly...
---------- (times infinity) the plastic over the gauges is so soft that it scratches if I curse at an incompetent taxi driver. This is just full-spectrum garbage VW, and you know it. Do better.
+ Sound; she sounds better than my VR6 did. Could be a little louder through the exhaust, but it's getting there as it breaks in and I give it the beans more often and for longer - a little deeper and growlier. Not sure if I'll mess with the exhaust for sound; it's a turbo 4 after all. They mostly sound like WAAAAHHHHH to me. My bikes and truck sound better, in relative terms.
- Soundaktor; must die. Will fix with OBDEleven.
- Engine sounds a little like a tractor at cold-start idle. Moreso from in the cabin than outside the car.
- Turbo noise is a little too mild. I'm not going to mess with a BOV or anything though, just wish it had a little more whistle and woosh. My friend had a Mk4 Jetta which sounded better here, and a prior 3.5Ecoboost F150 had a really great turbo soundtrack ('course there were two of 'em...). My two prior diesel pickups were really musical too.
+ Wheels; it's cool that the car shipped with these lightweight forged Belvedere wheels. That's not where a lot of automakers would spend money. They look decent, though other wheels look better to my eye. I might have these powder coated.
+ Brakes; she stops hard and modulation is really good. Nice work VW. Red calipers look good. I'll probably fit drilled rotors, because I think they look cool.
- Brakes; is huge brake dust production part of VW's engineering specs for all their cars? At least these don't squeal like my other ones did. Will replace the pads for sure.
- Windshield glass; in another thread I mentioned that mine has some subtle ripples, which apparently is just a thing with these. The glass is obviously über soft - I think a mosquito made a chip in it, and for some reason ice/snow bonds to it WAY harder than other vehicles I've owned.
+ Pure White; white is a classic colour for a GTI. I wanted DIB, but the dealer couldn't find one, so then I asked for CFB, but they couldn't get another dealer to transfer one. I hurt the sales guy's feelings when I told him there was no universe where I'd drive away in the Black one he wanted to sell me (Every Black vehicle I've had made me swear I'd never have another... 4 times in total.) This was on the showroom floor, and I told him if they took off the price of the window tint, floor mats and trunk protector, and added 3 years of scheduled maintenance AND the depreciation waiver on the lease, they could keep the roof rack and I'd take that one. So here we are. This white makes the other white cars in the lot at work look either very yellow, or a little pink, depending on the brand. It's like a brand new, washed and bleached white t-shirt. Likey.
TL-DR: you didn't read all that, and who is this old clown anyway? Fleetwood Mac and DK.. wut? Nice car, some things are great, some things are OK and some things are f*cked. A few things will get changes. I like it and I'm glad I bought it.
